


To Be This

by thatsrightdollface



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brotherhood, Character Study, F/M, Gen, M/M, Scene Analysis, going to a rave, trying (and often failing) to understand each other???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20003938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: What it could mean to be Number One.  What it could mean to be Number Four.Or maybe, neither of those things.  Maybe they’re just figuring it out in pieces all the time.





	To Be This

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there~ I hope you enjoy this fic if you read it. :D I… Really love that scene with Luther and Klaus on the couch… And I wanted to analyze the different ways they seem to see themselves/each other??? 
> 
> I reference that “Blood Like Lemonade” song in the final little scene title, also. That song is by Morcheeba. Credit where it’s due!!! :)
> 
> Thank you! Have a great day.

One:

“O Captain, My Captain!”

…

Klaus looked at his brother Luther and saw all those dozens of magazine articles from way back when — the ones where his arms were crossed solidly over his chest and he was staring the camera down. Luther’s blank, masked-over eyes had been a challenge, then. Like, “Hey, are you messing with us? Bad choice, friend.” Like, “My father’s given clear orders how to deal with ne’er-do-wells like _you_.”

Luther who never swore on camera, how Klaus had done once or twice and then clapped his hands over his mouth in a way Ben described as “Cartoon Character-esque.” Luther who ushered civilians away from danger with a calm, solid voice. Luther who was very good at not seeming afraid, even if he _did_ flop back on the couch later and laugh to Allison about how badly his hands had been shaking. No matter what changed in their world – (changed between all the Umbrella Academy) – wasn’t Luther always ready for the mission to start?

Luther had the wheel from an old, adventurous ship hung on his wall instead of movie posters; Luther had been the very first child in space. Allison probably still had a few slices of comet-rock he’d chipped off for her, somewhere, and a handful of Martian soil he’d put in a little bottle like sand from the beach. Luther had written a short poem in Sharpie on that bottle, but he flushed red up to his ears and snapped, “Hey — no, we’re not just waving that around —!” when Klaus tried to read it.

When Klaus found Luther with his eyes gone blurry and melting, too vulnerable to belong to that same Spaceboy smirking at interview camera people like he was daring them to take a step out of line... When Klaus found Luther having just broken into their dad’s liquor cabinet, swaying on his feet and looking like he didn’t really know his own skin, his own strength, anymore... Well.

Even then, Klaus wouldn’t have been able to imagine this. Where they were now. Luther had worn his role all their lives, and it made more sense that he would lash out, unknowingly strong and growling decades of annoyance at Klaus — “You little shit...!” — than that he would collapse next to him and breathe so raggedly like he was swallowing back the kind of tears that burned his throat. Luther sat slumped so he seemed shorter than Klaus, now, despite his enormous shoulders, despite his gorilla-strong arms and heaving chest. Luther let his cheek brush Klaus’s shoulder, as if his brother’s snap-able arms could’ve supported him, just then. Haha, right? Probably not. Not even before the change, when Luther’d just been superhero-tough, been familiar-strong and Reginald Hargreeves’ Number One.

It was as if _Klaus_ was the one who had promised to keep the family safe, to never waver, to stand like a flag ground deep into the dead-still ground of the moon.

…

Four:

“Seems So Carefree” (Always, Always)

…

When Luther thought about his brother Klaus while he was on that stretched-too-long mission to the moon, he generally imagined him laughing. The Umbrella Academy’s Number Four used to jump on the bed cackling, sometimes, back then... A laugh like smashed antiques, or delicate glass plates sent careening down the stairs like sleds. Racing them with Diego or Ben, probably.

Klaus snickered into his palms during TV interviews while they were young and shiny and saving the world; Klaus laughed at _everything_ as they got older and he started sticking needles in his arms for fun. Started taking pills for more than just medicine. That sort of laughter was wild and bemused, like maybe Klaus wasn’t really sure what they were talking about, or why he’d dropped by besides probably to borrow some money... Or even to try and steal something to sell. Luther wasn’t supposed to let him.

Life always dizzy; life on a too-fast carousel, holding on so tight paint scraped off under Klaus’s nails. That was the sort of thing Luther thought about, imagining his brother. Remembering him. He might have wished he could laugh that much, too, but then who would stand guard on the moon when things finally fell apart? When the reason for his mission revealed itself, the way their father had assured him it would? Luther had found Klaus passed out in hidden places around the Hargreeves house, every now and then, arms limp like a marionette who’d cut his own strings.

Luther knew Klaus’s training with their father had been away from home, out in the world, sometimes. Klaus would come back with dirt on his clothes and sleep all day. It was difficult, his training. Luther wasn’t jealous of it, even if he _did_ wish his own training could’ve meant going outside a little more. He’d heard some of what Klaus said to Ben about it all, though – enough to know it often involved rotten places, enough to know Klaus wished it mattered when he faked sick so he could get out of it – but he didn’t listen too, too closely. They weren’t on a mission, after all, so he wasn’t gonna have to give Dad a team report just yet.

They had been young, then. Luther was still trying to figure out what being the leader and a good brother all at the same time was supposed to feel like. Which isn’t to say Luther didn’t wonder about Klaus. It definitely isn’t to say that he would have _wanted_ to say “No” if Klaus ever asked him to sail expensive plates down the stairs one day, too. He’d have said “No,” for sure. Oh definitely. But it still might’ve been nice to get an invitation.

When Luther told Klaus what had happened with their dad, with his moon mission, with all those years’ worth of vials of carefully labeled space-dirt, he didn’t expect Klaus to hold his gaze so carefully. He hadn’t expected Klaus to make him laugh, either, just a little and choking. Klaus wanted to listen with more of his mind than Luther had seen in a long time; Klaus offered to go get Allison, who could make the world feel normal-ish again if anyone could on all the earth.

No, though. Not yet.

Luther thought Allison deserved the carefully-polished side of him, the mission-ready side of him, the side that could stand up without feeling sick. Could look his reflection in the eyes without flinching. He thought she deserved all the good and beautiful things in their world, actually, and of course... _Of course_... He wanted so badly to be like that. To be someone worth her pride. Someone who it was helpful to keep around; someone who could control his strength when he got mad.

When Luther let all his raw-skin-scraped-open-on-the-concrete words fall out of him and into Klaus’s open hands, his brother brushed fingers softly against his sleeve. Murmured something kind. Dad might’ve been ashamed of him, giving him a mission just to send him somewhere, _anywhere_ — but Klaus... Klaus didn’t seem to understand how their father might have felt that way, at first. It looked like the idea of it hurt him, too, when the words sank in deep. That was funny, seeing such a protective look on Klaus’s face.

Klaus had been a good listener, before he was always, always feeling so far away, before he was always laughing or trying to smuggle away the fancy silverware in his coat. Hadn’t he? When they were kids.

Maybe Klaus could teach Luther to laugh like he did, too, for a little while. The world was already spinning way too fast.

But of course, then Klaus said _no, no he wouldn’t,_ and Luther went to the rave anyway.

…

Four (or not):

“See you again soon, Klaus.”

…

Klaus didn’t usually try to picture his own self — at least not too far beyond the _“Wait did I remember to put on actual clothes for this?”_ side of things — but when he did he tended to remember things his exes had said about him, or his father, or the people at clinics where he’d stayed. Rehab-analyses. Group therapy-analyses. Breaking him down to some pessimistic scribbles on a chart, and, hey, possibly making some nose-wrinkling-ly valid points he’d pretend didn’t bother him.

They said they’d see Klaus again soon, at the rehab clinics, at the group homes, in the stained and sterile-smelling places where he spent so much time. He’d walk out into the cold air and they already expected to see him so, so soon.

Klaus imagined himself unglued from most of the world, nowadays... From his powers, from the debts he was probably supposed to be paying, from almost everything except Ben following him around all ghostly like he did. And, um, well, the _need_. The hunger of addiction, of casting the spell that kept him unglued again and again and again. It was easy to remember the words his father had used for him, too. Flighty, selfish, head-in-the-clouds. It was easy to remember all the dead people who had screamed at him, wanting stuff Klaus still didn’t completely understand.

To be honest, Klaus often felt like everybody he knew had wanted something from him he either didn’t understand or couldn’t give until they stopped wanting anything at all.

But not Dave, though. Not that man he’d met when he fell out of his time, when he’d been in battle, when he’d lived a whole new life none of his siblings completely knew about yet. A life none of his therapists could have diagnosed and _absolutely_ none of his exes could’ve passive-aggressively hinted about whenever they met up accidentally in nightclubs.

Klaus was thinking about the version of Klaus Hargreeves that Dave had said he loved — whispered that he loved, like an inside joke, like a revelation — when he went to find Luther at the rave. When he went to bring his brother home, and maybe feed him — scrape together some eggs or a sandwich or something... Maybe pour him a glass of milk and help him to bed. Luther had always liked milk; Luther had been called “Number One” for so long that it was sometimes hard to remember he wasn’t actually the older brother, here. Same exact birthday — same exact age, down to the second. Well, before Klaus’s jaunt through time, anyway.

Dave would’ve imagined Klaus as the type of guy who would fold blankets around his drunk-out-of-his-mind brother and heave Luther’s giant arm up and off the floor if it hung over the edge of the bed. Fold it across his middle like, “There, now. G’night, Big Guy. It’ll all feel better under a little sunlight, yeah? I’ll tell everybody we had a movie night or whatever sort of Boy Scout thing you like.” Dave had seen Klaus tend to some of their fellow soldiers back in Vietnam when they made themselves sick, after all. When they drank too much and needed somebody to help them save a little face or dunk their helmets in some water to get the puke off.

Dave would have told Klaus he was kind, he was caring, and maybe that was true. More than that, maybe Klaus genuinely wanted to be those things for Luther, now. Their father certainly hadn’t been. And Luther hadn’t expected Klaus to be, not really. Not at first. When Ben had said Luther would’ve done the same for Klaus – would’ve tried to bring him home, if he knew he was missing – Klaus had wondered if someday his siblings would think about him like that. _Klaus would do the same good and honorable thing for you._

The rave would’ve been so many things to Klaus, before now, when he was good and high. Now it was only pain and unknowable music, only his eyes burning. It felt like there had to be blood crusted all along edges of those eyes, maybe, like some really exciting gothic makeup. _Luther had wanted to be like Klaus._ Luther had said he wanted Klaus’s drugs, Klaus’s carefree laughing, Klaus’s place on the team. He had run away here to become someone who couldn’t feel everything too much, too quickly, too horribly for at least a little while. Who hadn’t been reminded that his decisions could make or break the world just so, so many times.

When Klaus called Luther’s name, he knew Dave would’ve recognized the worry in his voice. Would’ve been like, “Ah, there he is.” And there Klaus was.

When Luther saw Klaus coming to him from through manic lights and the stink of perfumed sweat, through dancing and swimmy-headed pain, he shouted, _“Brother!”_ in a voice that meant seeing Klaus was such an amazingly good thing.

Granted, Luther was really, _really_ high...

And granted the rave felt unnervingly like neon hell for Klaus right about then...

But even so.

 _“Brother,”_ like Klaus was the person Luther wanted to see most in all the world. That couldn’t have been something Klaus expected, describing himself before.

…

One (or not):

“Healing, holy man, once upon a time...”

…

Back when he was a kid, Luther knew that if somebody — say from the paper — asked who he was... What he meant, as a force, as a person, as a vigilante in slightly blood-splattered school clothes... He was supposed to say he was Number One of the Umbrella Academy. He’d been instructed to show them Dad’s snappy umbrella logo and reveal no hesitation. Not even a twitch to his lip, nothing. He could say he personally was called “Spaceboy,” if he really wanted to, and maybe dig up inspiration from some old taglines.

_First boy to climb beyond earth’s gentle atmosphere!_

_The strength of a gang of men, and now let’s watch him toss a car over his shoulder and throw the camera a smile!_

It didn’t especially matter, though, did it? Dad usually did the explaining at times like that. He knew what Luther was, if anyone did. What he was supposed to be.

Luther knew he wouldn’t have introduced himself as “Spaceboy” if _Allison_ had asked him that same sort of question, even back then. When they were alone, maybe. When it was dark and quiet, and he could watch the stars through the window, moonlight brushing nervously against her hair. It was hard to say how Luther would’ve answered, in that case. It probably would’ve depended on how Allison was looking at him.

“I’m ‘Luther,’ now, ‘cause Mom picked that name… And I’m strong. I was strong enough to move the refrigerator when your ring fell underneath it. Are you okay? If you don’t remember, we have to go talk to Dad.”

“I like books and watching TV — I like cookies and hotdogs and the idea of camping. I know I’ve never actually been, yet, but I’m still allowed to like it no matter what Diego says. And I like space. Wait... Uh. Let’s pretend I said ‘space’ first.”

Luther might have just smiled at Allison, really, and said, “Hey, you know me!” like that was enough. Like it was enough to just be, to exist alongside her. Heck, if he got brave he might’ve even said, “You know me, and I’ve loved you pretty much as long as I can remember.” Or he might have just thought those words for days and days and days, wishing he’d cleared his throat and coughed them out into the dark, whatever happened next.

Allison had said Luther was sweet. Said he was generous, and funny in a quiet kind of way. Allison had said he was cute, too, but that was so long ago.

Luther had stared at his body, at his enormous gorilla-chest and strangers’-hands, in the mirror fairy recently. He hadn’t had a mirror that could show so much of him, on the moon. Just then, for a minute, he’d tried to see himself the way Allison might. Tentatively, like tapping the edges of something with the very tips of his fingers to see how badly it could burn him.

What words would Allison use for him now?

What words could he use for himself? Everything felt pale and fragile, like it would snap apart the minute he tried to pick it up.

Luther’s team deserved a leader their father would believe in. But without the role he’d practiced, without the missions he’d given so much of his youth and his human skin and — for a few long seconds — his whole beating heart for, who the hell was Luther Hargreeves?

Luther found a place beyond words, for a little while. Klaus’s chemicals in his blood and music like new battle drums, like a fresh heartbeat. It had been so hot and cramped under all the coats he’d been wearing to hide his so-changed self. He’d forgotten how heavy everything had become on earth. The moon’s gravity had helped him forget — he’d wanted to toss those layers off so many times since he’d been back. Feel the air down the damp of his neck; take a deep breath without feeling the seams straining apart.

It hadn’t taken too much loosening, too much of a chance to breathe, for Luther to pull Klaus into a tight, tight hug, so excited to see him under all the pounding music, through all the spinning-carousel nightclub lights. He’d always wanted to be excited to see his siblings like that. Wanted to trust them; wanted to feel close even if he’d never really known how.

Maybe part of Luther had wanted to throw his arms around Klaus and swing him around when they first met up, too. Buried somewhere under expectations and rehearsed lines and a furrowed brow that meant “I know you’re not happy to see me. I know you’d rather sneak away with stuff from Dad’s office than say hello.” But maybe those expectations weren’t _completely_ true, were they? Maybe the fact that Klaus had come to this new world with him – this release and electricity, surrender and forgiving movement all around them – meant something important. Klaus had joined all Luther’s new friends. He’d come looking for him, calling his name through the crowd. Like they were on the same side, again.

Sometimes Luther didn’t have to rehearse his role before he spoke; sometimes Luther could just feel whatever was real to him. Allow himself to live. Sometimes he could grin like he was seeing earth from space for the very first time, finding his brother at a rave; sometimes he could sit with Allison, leaning his head against the wall and trusting that she knew everything about him that mattered, somehow. Trust she was letting him tell her the folktales behind all sorts of constellations because she genuinely wanted to hear that stuff, and then they were going to take a few quizzes from her magazines.

But not always.

Not yet.

It was hard to see all of themselves when they were in pieces, wasn’t it? The whole Umbrella Academy, in pieces like the moon would be soon enough. Together they were all the end of the world.

For now.

That could be a “not always” thing too, of course. That would have to be, like piecing a mirror back together until they could see each other clearly and meet all over again.

When Luther woke up, so, so much later, everything hurt and there was a stranger in his bed. A stranger beyond his new, changed self, anyway. _Another_ stranger in his bed?

Klaus, for his part, attempted to make coffee for everyone.


End file.
